India-CARE India Maternal and Newborn Health

The State of Bihar in India, is the third most populous state of the country, located in the northeastern part of India. Amongst the many healthcare challenges of the state, its unacceptable high maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality rate are the focus of the CARE India Quality Improvement Initiative. This Collaborative — a peer-to-peer learning network — was launched by CARE India as a data-driven Quality Improvement Initiative to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in ten (10) selected district hospitals, targeting a population of over 28,000 pregnant women who report to these hospitals, in Bihar.

Ubora Institute has been providing technical support to the Collaborative which is currently in its Phase 2 of the design. Building upon the gains of Phase 1, which involved introducing and aligning QI methodologies with the activities of CARE India at the facility level, Phase 2 of the work focuses more on continuous capacity building of health workers in the ten (10) hospitals in the application of QI methods and clinical best practices in maternal and newborn health with special focus on:

• Triaging of pregnant women in labour
• Identification of complications in labour and pregnancy
• Identification of weak newborns – i.e. preterm, asphyxiated and low birthweight babies
• Identification and management of acute and chronic anaemia in pregnancy
• Establishing and implementing a robust responsive and reliable data collection and management system.